The understanding of both natural and human impact on geo- and ecosystems over long time scales is crucial for calibrating and improving predictions of future climate and environmental change based on different forcing scenarios.

The Department of Geoscience has a long history of achievements in reconstructing past environmental and climatic changes, spanning most geographical regions across the globe with special focus on the Arctic. In particular, the fact that climate change is driven by complicated non-linear feedback mechanisms requires long time series of multiple proxies recorded in geological archives to elucidate the processes causing climate change.

• Ocean-atmosphere-cryosphere interactions, including tipping points and speed of change in Arctic, temperate and tropical regions.
• Changes in ocean circulation and sea-ice cover and their impact on the climate system.
• Glacier processes and environments and their impact on sea level.
• Solar dynamics through time and the role of the sun on climate change.
• Earth surface processes and how the landscape is impacted by wind, water and ice
• Soils and terrestrial vegetation dynamics.
• Impact of climate and ocean circulation changes on biota and carbon production/uptake over time.
• Inter-disciplinary studies with archaeology, interactions between humans and the environment, and human evolution.

We explore these themes by analyzing marine and terrestrial paleo-archives, and by numerical modelling of glaciers, ice sheets, and sea level. For details we refer to the specific research groups and centres.